The Pagan Blog Project

All right, I gave in to temptation. Lucky me that's not like a mortal sin or anything, seeing as how I'm Pagan and stuff and the whole concept of sin is just not my effin' problem. Oh yes, and I am also very much a Witch.

So, I'm joining in on Rowan Pendragon's Pagan Blog Project. Now given that there are fifty-two weeks in the year, and twenty-six letters in the alphabet, exactly half why would you look at that, she's come up with the idea for us Pagany sorts to write a blog post a week using the given letter for the week, i.e., the first two weeks on a Paganish subject beginning with A, the next two on subjects beginning with B, et cetera. It of course started last week with the first Friday in January, but I'll consider only being a week and a half late to the party a damned fine start given my proclivities.

I've been dealing with a burst of energy lately. It may or may not (it may, hoo boy it may) have something to do with that daimon of mine, who, since more or less disappearing over the summer (and I swear it was the Veil, not me) has come back holy-fuck-what-is-this strong recently, and in a new form that is, well, a tetch on the manic side. So there's some spillover, probably (definitely). Trust me, when your Muse, your Inspirer, is bouncing off the freaking walls and nattering on at a million miles an hour about Godsknow what but you can bet it's important, you are along for the ride whether you will or no. So I figured I may as well try to channel some of that.

Then there's the other thing. I walked into a book store on Yule and came across a book, by one Christopher Penczak, who, I am somewhat chagrined to admit, I'd only heard of because he was on the cover of the NewWitch issue I got for free since I'd done an illustration (Dionysos, of course, after the style of Harry Clarke) for it a few years back. I am, it is true, woefully underinformed in my 'field', as it were; also I am very much inclined to hermitage—honestly if I could live in a cave I would. Seriously, I really, really would. Well, so long as it had decent heat. That is not up for argument, not any more.

But there on the shelf was a book, by the abovementioned Mr. Penczak: The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft: Shadows, Spirits, and the Healing Journey.

Yeah, he kinda had me at the title.

What it is is a year-and-a-day course, with thirteen (of course) lessons total, for exploring those other worlds in a shamanic sort of way, with the end result going in and facing your shadow. That sounds pretty heavy, doesn't it. I picked it up and browsed through it in the book store and thought, one, gosh I'm doing most of this already, as in, this 'shamanic' stuff sure does sound familiar, what with the journeying and the talking to people in my head stuff, not to mention the coming out of a Tower year emotional journey sort of thing I'm right in the middle of, and two, OMG I MUST DO THIS I SIMPLY MUST. So I bought it.

I used to have a coven, but that split up when some of us moved north and some of us (well, me, that is) moved south; it was more Wiccan than I realized at the time, but it still wasn't very formally structured. Which is fine, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining or anything. And since then I've been more or less a solitary, which suits me. But that means I've never really had any sort of well, not training, I suppose, more organization I guess. What I know is a bit of a jumble. So I thought that trying something within a structure would be a good thing. In magic, as well as in art, sometimes it is nice to learn it by the rules first. With the intent, always, to throw those rules out later as you make your own way. But it can be good to have some place to start. And Penczak, from what I've read so far (and I've browsed through more or less the whole book, because I want to know what I'm in for) comes off as very much having a clue. So.

Then this whole Pagan Blog Project thing might sound like biting off more than I can chew. It might have been in the past, it's true. Except, part of the year-and-a-day thing involves other research, like for example, picking a mythology to study, herbs, dream interpretation, &c, which is then supposed to go in one's Book of Shadows (and sorry, I've always found that a damned silly name, though it is appropriate in this case, I'll give it that. Why yes, I am opinionated. Don't say I didn't warn you).

So really then I'm simply doing what I was going to do anyway, just putting things up here instead of in a proper physical journal. It's more efficient, I think, or at least that's what I'm telling myself. Because it was just too tempting to join in.

These aren't going to be written in order. They will publish in order, and in fact I'm going to backdate the first couple so I appear to be caught up, in other words I will lie. I may even backdate this one, just so it stays at the head of the column so to speak. So though I'm writing it on the thirteenth, let's say it's the fifth.

Oh that's the other thing. Time isn't linear. Not by a long shot.

So let's jump right into the dark, with A, for Ancestors. This next one is not going to be pretty, as I come from what I am realizing is a profoundly dysfunctional family. Here we go.